


7.25 Hints per Hour

by doctordoctor



Category: Lemonverse
Genre: Dark Comedy, Fantasy Chemistry, Flirting, Grave Robbery, M/M, Mellified Man, Partners in Crime, Pre-Slash, Secrets, grave desecration, human remains, innuendos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 05:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19222240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctordoctor/pseuds/doctordoctor
Summary: It's a few days after Sylvester, the mysterious and flirtatious candy shop owner, finally told Taylor, the post-grad paranormal conspiracy theorist who had been secretly researching him, the secret ingredient to his special magical jars of sweetness is actually century-old human remains. Now Taylor wants to know everything there is to know about this illicit process. Sylvester agrees to tell Taylor anything he can think to ask, as long as he helps him dig.





	7.25 Hints per Hour

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this story to my tumblr (@eviltwin76) in August of 2016, when these characters were brand new. It was the first fanfic I ever posted online. Enjoy.

“This is dirt that’s been sitting still for about a hundred years, so it’s gonna be packed pretty hard. That’s why we have this.” He held up the container. “It loosens up the dirt and softens it, so it’s easier to pull up.” He set the container on the ground and pulled the lid off the top, revealing a neon green, slightly gooey liquid that reminded Taylor of Mountain Dew, and a smell that felt like it was bleaching his sinuses. “It’s my own special concoction, you won’t find anything else like it,” he noted with a hint of pride in his voice.

“Did you make it with magic?” Sylvester’s penchant for witchcraft was one of the first secrets he’d shared with Taylor, a few months ago now.

“Nope. Just your garden variety household cleaning supplies, a bit of baking soda, and uh,” he coughed, “highly toxic industrial chemicals.”

“Wow.” The smell was in his throat now. “I dunno why, but I never pegged you for much of a chemist.”

“Aw, what? I love chemistry! I mean, I make candy for a living, I gotta love it. You should see all my molecular structure diagrams and calculations from when I was inventing this stuff. I got notebooks full of ‘em.”

Taylor tried to keep himself from drooling. There was heat rising in his gut, and he tugged at his collar sheepishly. “Yeah, I, uh… I’d love to see those.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to stop the images of Sylvester wearing lab coats and using graduated cylinders that were clouding up his field of view. He cleared his throat. “So, how does it work?”

“Oh, it’s real simple, just how you’d expect.” Sylvester lifted the container of pungent liquid off the ground again and gently poured out a layer of the viscous material over the full area of the grave. By the time he had reached the far end, the container was empty, the ground was hissing and bubbling softly, and the air around them was much warmer. “You just pour it on the dirt you want to dig up, wait for it to stop glowing completely, and you’re good to go!” He reached back and turned off his flashlight, and Taylor followed suit. Sylvester grinned as he watched the reaction unfolding below, his eyes shining in the eerie green light of the concoction. “Heee. Never stops being awesome to see how well it actually works.”

“What if it reaches the coffin?”

“Don’t worry, I measured it out beforehand. There’s just enough to penetrate about five and a half feet down, so the last six inches will be a pain, but it’s worth it to protect the goods.”

“Ah, I see.” Taylor caught himself wondering if he’d used a volumetric flask to measure out the amount or if he’d performed all the dimensional analysis it would take to generate just the right volume from all the separate components. He didn’t know which was worse.

“Heh, you don’t even know how good we have it. The earlier versions of this stuff would only reach one or two feet down, no matter how much I poured on, so I had to stop every half hour or so and pour out another layer. I tell ya, those were the days,” he laughed, a nostalgic look on his face. “The hardest part, though, was probably the laboratory testing.” Sylvester turned to Taylor with a deeply serious expression. He said slowly, “Do you know how hard it is to acquire 144 cubic feet of old, hard-packed dirt in a fluoropolymer-coated glass case?” He leaned in close to Taylor’s face. “It’s really hard.”

Taylor stifled a laugh and muttered quietly, “That’s not the only thing that’s gonna be really hard in a minute if you don’t stop all this science-y talk.”

Sylvester grinned and almost did a double take. “T? Was that a sex joke?” Taylor could only laugh in response. “Don’t you know those are strictly my domain?” he laughed along.

“Must be the fumes.” Taylor continued giggling, relief flowing through him that his unconsidered comment hadn’t been too revealing. Really, it was a wonder he could even think of such things with the powerful smell of dirt softening chemicals in the air.

“Man, if I’d known it worked as an aphrodisiac, I would’ve taken you along here a lot sooner.”

Actually, the smell seemed to be getting weaker now; it was far less abrasive than when Sylvester had been pouring it. The glow of the earth was looking considerably dimmer as well. Soon enough, the two were sat in complete darkness in the moonless night. They turned their flashlights back on, grabbed their gloves and shovels, and went to work on the loosened, quite soft soil. Taylor couldn’t help but marvel a bit at the effectiveness of the homemade chemical. The work was still exhausting, to be sure, but far less backbreaking than he’d been expecting. And with Sylvester there for company, the task wasn’t such a nightmare at all.

It was about two hours before they struck their target, both panting and covered in sweat, and Sylvester's face lit up. “Man, that was the fastest operation ever! It usually takes me at least twice this long!” He brushed the last few scraps of dirt off the surface of the coffin and threw his spade over the edge above him. “Thanks for the help, man! You did great!” He patted Taylor lightly on the shoulder with his muddy, gloved hand.

Taylor’s heart bloomed embarrassingly big at the slight praise, and he smiled happily. “Thanks, you too!”

Sylvester smiled back at him, and then he reached up to pull the crowbar out of their supply bag at the surface. He crouched down and brushed some of the dirt out of the slit in the coffin’s lid, then stuck the end of the crowbar in where the nails were in place. “Here we go,” he breathed, then gave the crowbar a tremendous tug, both arms straining with exertion. Taylor was about to ask if he could help before the nails suddenly gave way and the lid was open.

_“Oh honeyyyy, I’m hooome,”_ Sylvester sang out gleefully.

Inside was a sugar crusted shape that was unmistakably a human corpse, with quite a bit more flesh still there than you would normally expect from a hundred year old body, seemingly enfolded in almost mummy-like wrappings, and thickly coated in a shimmering, gold-tinted jelly substance. Taylor was having a hard time looking right at its face. Thankfully, the only smell from the remains was purely confectionary. (Strictly confectional, if you will.)

“Oh, look at her! Didn’t she come out just lovely? You look just _lovely,_ darling!” Sylvester brushed his first two fingers lightly against the candied surface of the body, and they came away with a dollop of jelly. “Ooh! And still pretty wet!” he exclaimed with surprise. “Guess you’re just that happy to see me, huh, baby? Mmmmwah,” he said and kissed his wet fingers to his lips. As he pulled them away, a string of the syrupy substance was pulled out between the two points, and Taylor just… he just didn’t know what to do with that image, but it sure was burned into his retinas now.

And then Sylvester licked up the string with his tongue. Or, Taylor had a stroke. One of the two.

At the sound of Taylor’s mild wheezing, Sylvester started as though he’d forgotten he was there for a moment. He wiped his hand off on his jeans and cleared his throat. “Right, uh, could you get the - the big black bag from the - ” he gestured up at the supply bag.

“Um yeahsure.” Taylor quickly stood up and reached for the garbage bags they’d packed.

Sylvester replaced his thick working gloves with the pair of latex ones he pulled from inside the bags, and set to work carefully folding the limbs of the corpse up until it was more or less a cannonball shape, held in place by its own sticky goo. He began wrapping the double-bagged set of extra large garbage bags around the head and sliding it down behind its shoulders, shoveling piles of surrounding jelly and loose sugar crystals in with it with his hands. He looked happy enough to hum a tune. For a second Taylor thought he could hear the sound of slap bass playing in the distance, but it was just his imagination.

“Why is it so flexible?” Taylor managed to squeeze the words through his tightened throat.

“Oh, I took most of the joints out when I was preparing the body. Kind of a tiresome process, but it really pays off with the ease of transportation later - when you don’t want to cut it all up. Not that dismemberment is such a bad way to go, but you know, more surface area equals faster absorption rate, and also faster decay, so.”

Taylor almost regretted asking. Almost. Truthfully, he was still quite fascinated - in the most morbid of ways - by all these serial killer tidbits, despite his rising nausea.

“Wait, Sly - hasn’t this body been treating for a hundred years? How could you have prepped it?”

Sylvester stilled for a second. “Uh, actually, my grandfather prepared this one in particular. I was talking about in general.”

“Oh. Right.” Taylor shook his head and felt silly. Obviously he’d misinterpreted Sylvester's words. That seemed to happen kind of a lot. Nonetheless, his curiosity kept flowing. “Your grandfather did this?”

“Ehyup. It used to be a family business. I was raised into it,” Sylvester continued, finally wrapping the edges of the bags around the corpse’s feet. He gently raised the plastic-sheathed mass, squeezing some air out of it and tying up the ends in some kind of complicated sailor’s knot.

“Used to be?”

His smile faded, and he looked away. “There was a… kind of a schism, a while back. I was caught in the crossfire. Now I’m the only one.” He grinned again, but the darkness didn’t leave his eyes. “I’m one of a kind, baby!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry,” Taylor said softly.

“No big deal. I know you said you wanted to learn, well, absolutely everything, so, here it all is.” He shifted to stand up, and spread his arms out, saying, “I’m an open book.”

Taylor smiled. He knew Sylvester well enough at this point to know that wasn’t quite true. He would always have his secrets, but honestly, that was what attracted Taylor to him. He was a living mystery. Nonetheless, Taylor still appreciated whatever fractions of honesty he was willing to dole out tonight in exchange for his help. “Thanks,” he said.

Sylvester smiled too. “Let’s get this bundle of sweetness out of this hole, huh?”

The two of them clambered up out of the open grave with their double-bagged prize, reclaimed their work gloves and shovels, and set to work filling in the hole they had made. Putting the dirt back in proved to be a lot easier than taking it out had been. Within the hour they had returned the earth to an adequate level of smoothness and started back towards the car, careful not to leave anything behind besides the disturbed patch of ground. Sylvester carried the “candy bag,” as he insisted they both exclusively refer to it once they had moved away from the grave site, as one would carry an oversized watermelon, and Taylor carried the supply bag slung over his shoulder and the empty chemical container in his arms.

“Gosh, that was fast! It’s only three thirty, and we’re already out of here!” Sylvester was in the highest of spirits. “So fast, and so easy, with you here to help me. Man, I wish I could have you every time.”

Taylor didn’t know what to say. He knew he probably shouldn’t make a habit of playing the accomplice to Sylvester’s frequent grave robbery. But, what he did like was getting the chance to spend a solid five hour block of the night all alone with Sylvester, plus free reign to pick his brain for anything he wanted to know about him. And, besides his aching muscles and his first experience with a dead human body, he had had a good amount of fun that night, strangely enough. He had lived a pretty straight-laced life up until this point; maybe it was time for a walk on the less straight side of the road.

It seemed like getting not-straight with Sylvester was all he could think about these days.

“Um. I’ll think about it?” he responded.

“What? Oh, no, man, you don’t have to, I was just thinking aloud. I know you have a hard enough time keeping your reputation alive, even without hanging out with me so much, much less helping me out with my, uh, little habit.” He raised the hefty candy bag in his arms. “I’ve done enough damage already, really,” he laughed.

“Aw, no, I…” Taylor paused. Maybe Sylvester had a good point. When Voltaire, the star student of the English department, heard that he’d started working at the rumored-to-be-occult candy shop so many months ago, it hadn’t exactly done much to help his already wobbly reputation around campus. He learned the other week that some had taken to calling him “Spooky Sargasso.” (He actually had mixed feelings about that nickname, but he recognized that it wasn’t good for his professional image.) “Okay, yeah, fair enough.”

Sylvester laughed at that, a genuine laugh. “You’re finally seeing some sense.”

“But I do like hanging out with you,” Taylor emphasized with a smile. “Maybe I could do this again sometime, just so I get to ask you more questions.”

Sylvester glanced at him with a soft smile. “You can ask me questions any time.” They had reached the car in the parking lot now, and were setting their things down in the trunk. “Special offer, just for you.”

Taylor’s heart jumped a little. “Really?”

“I mean, yaknow, as long as no one else is around.” He chuckled nervously. “And remember, you tell anyone anything I’ve told you, I will know. I’ve taken out mooks twice your size before.” Taylor smirked at that. “I’m serious! It’s not pretty. I know tae kwon do.” He did a few mock karate chops, making Taylor giggle. “But nah, man, I trust you. It’s all good.” He closed the trunk and turned to Taylor. “In fact, I… I’ve got one more secret I need to share with you tonight. If you can take it.”

With those words Taylor’s heartbeat tripled in pace and he stood straight up. “Absolutely.”

Looking at the ground, Sylvester took a very deep breath. His hands grew fidgety and clasped together behind his back, his sore arms growing tense. Taylor had never seen his face so somber and serious - not even earlier that week, when he’d sat him down to tell him about his medicinal jars’ active ingredient. He could actually see fear in his eyes - not just nervousness, genuine fear - as he looked anywhere but Taylor’s face. As the silence drew on, his breathing picked up, and Taylor knew his heart must be racing quite fiercely.

“Hey, it’s okay. I literally just robbed a grave with you, okay, you can tell me anything.”

“I know, I know, it’s just… this is a different kind of secret. Much more dangerous.”

“More dangerous than, ‘hey I regularly commit felony grave robbing in the dead of night and sell people human remains disguised as candy’?” Taylor responded incredulously.

“Yes, actually. This… this doesn’t just get me in trouble with the law. This gets me in trouble with…” Sylvester looked into Taylor’s eyes for a moment. “Potentially anyone.” He looked away again. “With humanity itself, really,” he said so quietly Taylor barely caught it.

Taylor didn’t know how to respond. Honestly, all this dramatic build-up was making him so hungry for knowledge that if he opened his mouth the only thing that could come out would be a “just spit it out already!” All he could do was stand there and look at him with eyes wide.

Sylvester glanced to see the look on Taylor’s face, and he sighed. “I’m sorry, I just… I’ve never told this to anyone before.”

Taylor’s heart skipped another beat, and he tried to suppress the fluttery feeling now spreading through his chest. No, stop, this doesn’t make you special, this doesn’t mean anything.

Finally, Sylvester took in a final breath and opened his mouth.

“I’m gay.”

Taylor stared at him. A brief silence elapsed. Taylor squinted.

Before he could respond, Sylvester snorted and burst out laughing. “Just kidding.”

“Oh, I-”

“That’s not a secret. I’ve told that to plenty of people before.”

“Hh- oh.” Taylor had to shake his head from the disorienting exchange. Embarrassingly, his thoughts had really gone whirling.

Sylvester was doubled over laughing, hitting his palm against his knee. “Man, the look on your face! You were so primed!” He walked over to the driver’s side door and climbed into the car, and Taylor followed suit on the passenger side.

As they drove off into the night, heading back into town, Taylor couldn’t shake the feeling that Sylvester hadn’t been joking at the start. He had seen the fear in his eyes. Or, he thought he had. He was pretty sure? He didn’t know anymore.

The truth was, if there really was something on Sylvester's mind that night, Taylor didn’t mind waiting to hear it. It was obviously a pretty big thing, so he understood the need to take his time. He felt sure it would come out eventually, and he’d be happy when Sylvester was ready to share it with him. Whatever ‘it’ was.


End file.
